v1.3.0

Cortex v1.3.0 Release Notes

Date: 2026-03-21
Tag: v1.3.0

v1.3.0 packages the high-signal memory wave into a single release: cleaner imports, fact-first retrieval, stronger lifecycle conflict handling, operator quality controls, and a deterministic retrieval eval gate.

Shipped in v1.3.0 (merged on main)

High-signal memory defaults

• Import-time denylist to reject known transcript/system noise before storage.
• Quality profiles (personal, agent-ops, codebase, trading) that seed sensible denylists, suppressions, and source boosts.
• Source-tier-aware ranking so curated sources beat auto-capture/task-prompt noise by default.
• Predicate conflict policies for single-valued, multi-valued, and append-only semantics.

Fact-first retrieval

• cortex search --facts for direct fact retrieval instead of chunk-only search.
• Plugin fact-first recall as the default OpenClaw recall mode.
• Operator hygiene controls:
  • cortex suppress list|add|remove
  • cortex source-weight list|add|remove
  • cortex fact keep|drop

Lifecycle + conflict resolution

• cortex lifecycle run --aggressive with lower confidence-delta threshold, substring specificity, and age-gap heuristics.
• Extraction-time fuzzy dedup that reinforces near-duplicate facts instead of creating copies.
• Temporal and heartbeat suppression at extracted-fact storage time.
• Rebalanced decay defaults across fact types, with config override support.

Operational confidence

• cortex health now reports embedding coverage, unresolved conflicts, stale facts, source tiers, predicate modes, and maintenance timestamps.
• cortex eval search runs deterministic retrieval evals over the fixture corpus and exits nonzero on regression, so retrieval quality can be gated in CI.

Included Direct Mainline Commits

• 749ac0a — feat: improve search quality and import hygiene
• 2e92df4 — feat: harden lifecycle conflict resolution
• c0cf4fc — feat: productize high-signal memory defaults
• 0ba0cfd — feat: add operator hygiene controls
• ee48342 — feat: add retrieval eval command

Upgrade

# Homebrew
brew upgrade hurttlocker/cortex/cortex-memory

# Binary (example: macOS arm64)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.3.0/cortex-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz

Release block for Q

# 1) Sync local main
git checkout main
git pull origin main

# 2) Tag and push
git tag -a v1.3.0 -m "v1.3.0"
git push origin v1.3.0

# 3) Draft GitHub release
gh release create v1.3.0 \
  --repo hurttlocker/cortex \
  --title "v1.3.0" \
  --notes-file docs/releases/v1.3.0.md

v1.2.4

Cortex v1.2.4 Release Notes

Date: 2026-03-11
Tag: v1.2.4

v1.2.4 packages the post-v1.2.3 operator-quality wave into one honest release: stronger operator retrieval, a cleaner OpenClaw happy path, bounded recall packaging, workflow repair, and ANN/HNSW reliability hardening.

Shipped in v1.2.4 (merged on main)

Operator retrieval + actionability

• Trust visibility surface for clearer operator/agent trust boundaries.
• Operator-intent query shaping for long workflow prompts without mutating the raw query surface.
• Top-1 tie-break hardening for operator-style retrieval.
• Deterministic actionability repair so downstream operator outputs stay cleaner and more usable.

OpenClaw setup + recall packaging

• Canonical OpenClaw happy path for getting Cortex + OpenClaw working from a single obvious flow.
• Bounded recall manifest selection so recall injection works against a hard budget.
• Grouped recall packing by project/file/section.
• Collapsed-hit detail-marker preservation so packed same-source detail stays visible under long primary snippets.

Reliability + CI hardening

• Reason-quality nightly workflow repaired on main.
• ANN/HNSW malformed-state hardening so malformed persisted ANN state recovers to a stable rebuilt index instead of repeatedly degrading.

Included PRs

• #312 — feat(cortex): add trust visibility to cortex agents (#275 slice A)
• #315 — feat(search): bounded operator-intent query shaping for long prompts (#303 slice A)
• #316 — feat(search): bounded top-1 tie-break hardening for operator retrieval (#304 slice A)
• #317 — feat(reason): deterministic actionability contract repair (#305 slice A)
• #322 — feat(setup): canonical OpenClaw happy-path + actionable setup checks (#321)
• #323 — feat(plugin): add bounded recall manifest budget selection (#319 slice A)
• #324 — fix(ci): repair reason-quality-eval-nightly workflow file failure (#314)
• #325 — feat(plugin): bounded grouped recall packing for #318-lite
• #327 — fix(plugin): keep collapsed-hit detail marker visible in #318-lite packing (#326)
• #328 — fix(search): harden HNSW load/rebuild against malformed-length persisted state (#313)

Intentionally not fully shipped in v1.2.4

• #318 remains broader than the shipped #318-lite harvest.
• #319 remains broader than shipped Slice A.
• #320 remains intentionally held / parked and is not part of this release.
• #307 remains the broader operator-mode umbrella beyond the shipped bounded slices.

Upgrade

# Homebrew
brew upgrade hurttlocker/cortex/cortex-memory

# Binary (example: macOS arm64)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.4/cortex-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz

Release block for Q

# 1) Merge this release packaging PR to main

# 2) Sync local main
git checkout main
git pull origin main

# 3) Tag and push
git tag -a v1.2.4 -m "v1.2.4"
git push origin v1.2.4

# 4) Draft GitHub release (draft text source: docs/releases/v1.2.4.md)
gh release create v1.2.4 \
  --repo hurttlocker/cortex \
  --title "v1.2.4" \
  --notes-file docs/releases/v1.2.4.md

v1.2.3

Cortex v1.2.3

Import-first, observable memory layer for AI agents.

Quick Install

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.3/cortex-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# macOS (Intel)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.3/cortex-darwin-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# Linux (x86_64)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.3/cortex-linux-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

MCP Setup (Claude Code)

cortex import ~/my-notes/ --recursive
claude mcp add cortex -- cortex mcp

Changelog

• cb60ada reason: remove hardcoded contract boilerplate rewrite (#300)

v1.2.2

Cortex v1.2.2

Import-first, observable memory layer for AI agents.

Quick Install

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.2/cortex-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# macOS (Intel)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.2/cortex-darwin-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# Linux (x86_64)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.2/cortex-linux-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

MCP Setup (Claude Code)

cortex import ~/my-notes/ --recursive
claude mcp add cortex -- cortex mcp

Changelog

• 2f51f88 Merge pull request #286 from hurttlocker/fix/lifecycle-perf
• 5b4a8fc Merge pull request #295 from hurttlocker/feat/294-completions-docs
• 295dcb8 Merge pull request #296 from hurttlocker/xmate/search-source-291
• abc4fdc Merge pull request #297 from hurttlocker/xmate/progress-292
• 7739b9e Merge pull request #298 from hurttlocker/xmate/demo-293
• bac8a68 feat(cli): add one-command temp-db demo flow (#293)
• 17d225d feat(cli): add stderr progress and timing summaries for import/sync (#292)
• 6ea9f67 feat(search): enforce source-prefix filtering in FTS query path (#291)
• 6734392 fix: release checklist tag line in v1.2.2 notes
• 23998e7 perf: fix O(N²) lifecycle reinforce-promote query (#286)
• 32804e8 release: v1.2.2 — distribution & polish sprint

v1.2.1

Cortex v1.2.1

Import-first, observable memory layer for AI agents.

Quick Install

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.1/cortex-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# macOS (Intel)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.1/cortex-darwin-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# Linux (x86_64)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.1/cortex-linux-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

MCP Setup (Claude Code)

cortex import ~/my-notes/ --recursive
claude mcp add cortex -- cortex mcp

Changelog

• b9bd0f0 Auto-fix: go fmt
• 400b923 Merge pull request #281 from hurttlocker/feat/278-error-ux
• b052bb6 Merge pull request #282 from hurttlocker/feat/280-version-check
• 9538a8f Merge pull request #283 from hurttlocker/feat/276-init-wizard
• da8174b Merge pull request #284 from hurttlocker/feat/277-readme-quickstart
• 4a503a6 Merge pull request #285 from hurttlocker/xmate/contrib-examples-279
• 55d381d Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/xmate/query-filters-273'
• 529601d feat(config): add entity hub hygiene configuration (#271)
• d54abe1 feat(doctor): add version check against latest GitHub release (#280)
• 402f251 feat(export): add --validate for obsidian export graph checks (#269)
• 594a346 feat(query): add generic metadata filtering with --where flags (#273)
• cb3d243 feat(ux): expand remediationHint with 15 new error categories + improve inline messages
• 8ae024c feat: cortex connect sync --provider obsidian — bidirectional vault connector (#272)
• 04634d5 feat: cortex export obsidian --trading — trading journal export (#270)
• 2e45dc9 feat: cortex export obsidian — native 3-layer brain export (#268)
• 5523491 feat: cortex init — first-time setup wizard (#276)

v1.2.0

Cortex v1.2.0

Import-first, observable memory layer for AI agents.

Quick Install

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.0/cortex-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# macOS (Intel)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.0/cortex-darwin-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# Linux (x86_64)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.2.0/cortex-linux-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

MCP Setup (Claude Code)

cortex import ~/my-notes/ --recursive
claude mcp add cortex -- cortex mcp

Changelog

• 9a4f1a3 feat(answer): single-pass cortex answer with citation integrity and prompt injection defense (#247)
• 7613c20 feat(cleanup): add --dedup-facts for near-duplicate fact supersession (#245)
• 8ff6bdf feat(config): unified config resolver with doctor provenance (#241)
• 56048f5 feat(conflicts): auto-resolve with deterministic-first + LLM fallback (#249)
• 06afdb2 feat(lifecycle): add policy config wiring for belief lifecycle (#254)
• 39d23e2 feat(lifecycle): add policy runner with dry-run and apply modes (#256)
• ccdd48d feat(search): add --intent bucket pre-filter for retrieval (#251)
• cc6b8a1 feat(search): source-boost flag for relevance tuning (#242)
• 965f984 feat(store): add fact lifecycle state model — active/core/retired (#255)

v1.0.0

Cortex v1.0.0

Import-first, observable memory layer for AI agents.

Quick Install

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.0.0/cortex-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# macOS (Intel)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.0.0/cortex-darwin-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# Linux (x86_64)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v1.0.0/cortex-linux-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

MCP Setup (Claude Code)

cortex import ~/my-notes/ --recursive
claude mcp add cortex -- cortex mcp

Changelog

• ac5a54c feat: CLI hardening, doctor/agents commands, graph pagination (#228, #231, #236, #225, #226)
• ab53871 feat: grouped CLI help, shell completions, cleaner UX (#236)
• c0dfb22 feat: search quality benchmark + scale testing (#230, #232)
• 2b8c0a6 feat: wire --agent through classify, graph serve, cleanup, connect sync, MCP (#231)
• e4cb3ff feat: wire --agent through stats, stale, conflicts (#231)
• a6d590d fix(graph-ui): stale state clearing, cluster decoupling, dense layout (#226)
• 89a9064 fix: error handling hardening — reinforce exit code, fact type validation, new tests (#228)
• 6a978c5 fix: graceful degradation for hybrid/RRF without embedder, new remediation hints (#228)
• 6b37f65 fix: hostile audit findings — UX polish from fresh-user test (#237)
• f794e35 v1.0.0 — Production Ready

v0.9.0

Cortex v0.9.0

Import-first, observable memory layer for AI agents.

Quick Install

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v0.9.0/cortex-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# macOS (Intel)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v0.9.0/cortex-darwin-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# Linux (x86_64)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v0.9.0/cortex-linux-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

MCP Setup (Claude Code)

cortex import ~/my-notes/ --recursive
claude mcp add cortex -- cortex mcp

Changelog

• 020a1ff feat(classify): add --concurrency flag for parallel batch processing
• abf718d feat(extract): LLM enrichment + auto-classification + benchmarked defaults (#218, #219)
• 1402b6e feat(resolve): LLM-powered conflict auto-resolution (#217)
• dbd0807 feat(search): LLM-powered query expansion (#216)
• a61e943 feat: add progress logging to classify command
• 9c5e802 feat: graceful LLM degradation + README v0.9.0 docs (#227)
• a932142 feat: make LLM enrichment default extraction path (#227)
• 9696dd7 feat: reimport now includes LLM enrichment + upgrade docs
• 9c810bb fix(enrich): bump MaxTokens 1024→8192 for large file enrichment
• d4fb9f4 fix(enrich): type coercion for non-string JSON object fields
• 66969ff fix(extract): tighten rule extractor — kill 88% kv garbage (#227)
• 17412d6 fix(schema): add 'config' to valid fact_type enum
• b36891d fix: address v0.9.0 audit concerns
• 61a7101 fix: extraction/enrichment only processes new memories, not all recent
• 864413e release: v0.9.0 — LLM-Augmented Intelligence

v0.8.0

Cortex v0.8.0

Import-first, observable memory layer for AI agents.

Quick Install

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v0.8.0/cortex-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# macOS (Intel)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v0.8.0/cortex-darwin-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# Linux (x86_64)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v0.8.0/cortex-linux-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

MCP Setup (Claude Code)

cortex import ~/my-notes/ --recursive
claude mcp add cortex -- cortex mcp

Changelog

• 68f31c7 chore(release): bump version to 0.8.0
• aed936d docs(release): add v0.8.0 changelog entry
• 142d882 docs(release): add v0.8.0 release notes
• 4de099b feat(graph): add impact blast-radius endpoint and view
• 0049e0a feat(graph): add impact blast-radius endpoint and view (#206)
• 2e9dab2 feat(graph): add temporal flow timeline view
• 8b57285 feat(graph): add topic clustering with cohesion and cluster explorer
• f740d6a feat(graph): temporal flow timeline view (#209)
• 3737fb0 feat(graph): topic clustering with cohesion scores (#207)
• d58238a feat(mcp): add graph-aware tools and graph resources
• a4c10e3 feat(mcp): graph-aware tools and resources (#208)
• abea8f7 feat(search): add rrf search mode (#205)
• 7e1074b feat(search): add rrf search mode and scorer

v0.7.0

Cortex v0.7.0

Import-first, observable memory layer for AI agents.

Quick Install

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v0.7.0/cortex-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# macOS (Intel)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v0.7.0/cortex-darwin-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

# Linux (x86_64)
curl -sSL https://github.com/hurttlocker/cortex/releases/download/v0.7.0/cortex-linux-amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv cortex /usr/local/bin/

MCP Setup (Claude Code)

cortex import ~/my-notes/ --recursive
claude mcp add cortex -- cortex mcp

Changelog

• dc32fff Merge feat/v0.7.0-auto-sync: scheduled connector sync with launchd/systemd (#200)
• 8eb069a Merge feat/v0.7.0-connect-production: wire extract+infer into sync engine, sync tests, README update (#193, #201)
• b6ce7fa Merge feat/v0.7.0-search-improvements: source filter, source weighting, import dates (#199)
• 260f50c feat(connect): add Discord connector and API tests (#195)
• bb705fc feat(connect): add Notion connector with markdown extraction tests (#194)
• e6366d6 feat(connect): add Telegram connector with update polling tests (#196)
• 6f789ca feat(connect): add sync-extract-search e2e integration tests (#203)
• 53afbc6 feat(connect): scheduled auto-sync with launchd/systemd generation (#200)
• 7f67d0f feat(connect): wire fact extraction + edge inference into sync engine (#193)
• 9dc60b3 feat(graph): add facts API and interactive explorer filtering (#197)
• 02e8907 feat(plugin): wire --extract into connect sync, add --source to MCP search, bump to v0.3.0 (#198)
• 675187e feat(release): prepare v0.7.0 notes and version bump (#202)
• aa15390 feat(search): show import date in CLI search results (#199)
• 63f1f37 feat(search): source filter (--source), source weighting, connector detection (#199)
• 95d96fd fix(connect): dedup check bug + wire extract/infer into MCP sync tool
• 429d4eb fix(connect): timestamp parsing for incremental sync
• 2ce50a9 test(connect): add sync engine tests — extraction, dedup, multi-provider, disabled